10 of the best bike lights and cycle safety gear

Fibre Flare Micro Duo

Most bike lights are enough to make sure you're seen from directly in front of behind, but what about from the side? These bendy, LED-lit rods shine their light 360 degrees to make sure you're never missed and clip onto your clothing or bike. They come in long and short versions, and a number of different colours which'll do double duty as glow sticks on a night out.

Cateye HL-EL 135 and TL-LD150 light set

If you want a great set of lights at a low price, you can't go wrong with this set. Bright, easy to mount and long-lasting – you'll get over 320 hours in flashing mode and the set even comes with batteries included. Cateye's mounting system doesn't even require any tools and the rear light comes with an extra clothing clip.

Knog Boomer USB

We can never find a spare battery when we need one, and inevitably we've left the recharger in a box somewhere. These bright, easy to mount (with their rubbery band attachment) lights can simply be charged via USB. The whole (tiny) light section pulls out of the silicone body and can then be juiced up in a USB charger or attached to a spare port on your computer. Lovely.

Exposure Joystick Mk.6

Use your head and clamp a light onto your helmet. The Exposure Joystick is now in its sixth generation, so it's had plenty of time to reach perfection and pumps out a whopping 325 lumens. Housing a rechargeable battery, its focused beam will help light the dark corners of your local park or favourite cut-through. You can pair it with the short cable version of Exposure's RedEye light (pictured, £40) which plugs into the back for excellent rear visibility too.

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3M reflective spokes

3M's reflective spokes are probably the easiest of the bunch to fit to your bike. Just slip them onto your spokes and, like the Shwalbe Marathon tyres, they'll give you great side visibility, plus the spinning motion will help attract extra attention too.

Proviz Hi Visibility Rucksack Cover

Put a little Tron in your commute with this reflective rucksack cover with a difference. As well as the usual bright yellow and reflective strips, it comes with a battery powered swathe of electroluminescent film to keep you lit up even when you don't have a road full of high beams bearing down upon you.

Respro Black Diamond sticker sheet

Safe but stylish, if you know you really ought to make your bike more visible but just can't bear to plaster it with silvery-grey stickers, this is for you. Works exactly the same as the usual stuff, but is black when not in direct light so can be incorporated subtly with your bike's or helmet's design.

SpokePOV

If you want to add some flair to your steed after dark, this persistence of vision kit will let you add the design, text or animation of your choice to your wheels as a spinning light show. Be warned, though – you'll need to be able to solder, and to make the most of it a bit of programming skill wouldn't go amiss either.

Revolights

A recently funded project on Kickstarter, these lights set your rims ablaze with white or red light as you travel (and importantly, even as you don't). You can't get hold of a set yet, but we're hoping to see them on sale soon. In the meantime, check out the vid of them in action.